We now have a person of color beginning a serious, well-organized, well-funded run for the top (pretty miserable when you really think about it) job in our nation. This person is, finally, actually supported by the party under which banner he is running for this job.
But let's not get all proud of ourselves here. This person is, in my opinion, what I think of as "transitional".
Despite his grappling with what his relationship to black Americans was to be, what he wanted that relationship to be, despite his adoption of some parts of black culture, and his concomittant understanding of it, this very fine, intelligent, possibly imaginative and honest person is NOT an American black man.
When I was in high school we learned that the generation you are is figured through your father. I am a 1st generation American despite that my mother is a 12th generation American, because my father was not born in this country.
By this rubric, Mr. Obama is only a 1st generation American of color.
I look forward to the time when a 12th generation black American of either gender is a candidate for this thankless job we have here. When that time comes, we may actually be able to justify ending affirmative action.
Until then, to me it's all back slapping.
Re the 50-state strategy:
Obama picked up where Dean had to leave off in 2004, independently with his own campaign operation building a huge database and donor base throughout all 50 states. Without Dean's work, Obama would have had a bigger job, but I believe his contribution was the larger of the two.As I see it now, shifting my committment to the party is still premature. I want to see the entire party swing in behind Obama's philosophy of government before I'll support it with my money. If Barack can gain the Presidency and hold it successfully for the next 8 years and actually bring about the changes in managment style which he successfully used in the Illinois state senate, and if there's a new generation of younger dems who believe in achieving real progressive results without ugly fights, I'll give to the party. Until then, I really want my money to support someone who starts from a cooperative posture.For that reason I could never have supported Mrs. Clinton.My country has spent the last 80 years fighting - some of it has been real, but not much. Most has been fabricated and cost our society and the earth unfathomable amounts of money and lives.At least Mr. Obama seems to start at a premise of cooperation and negotiating. Just look at how he handled Mrs. Clinton last night. And Mr. Lieberman yesterday.
There is a small fund raiser on the activties list which you might consider when and if you make a donation to the Obama campaign.
You can read about it here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/fundraising/4vlg
I give a small amount to the campaign when I can and often forget that there are opportunities to help others in their fund raising efforts - opportunities like this one which seems unfortunately timely today.
Please consider it.
So? Will the power go to his head? Or is he really what we see?
As the results from the National Day of Voter Registration start to come in - the photos, the numbers of people who came, the process laid out, the high energy, the belief - I have been thinking about the power accruing to this inspiring man.
As part of that I have been reading a bio of him by David Mendell, Obama from Promise to Power. Mendell has been covering him since he started to run for state Senate in IL. for the Chicago Trib. Mendell tries to show as many sides of this person as he's given access to. He shows Obama grumpy, shows him unsuccessful and trying to figure out why, shows him happy, loving, caustic, tender, guarding his privacy, thinking things through. But always from the distance of a newspaper reporter without full access.
So for me, an enthusiastic supporter, there's still the question of whether this guy is who he appears to be.
And that has a lot to do with just how much of a liability it could be for him to consolidate so much power.
When I consider what's gone on for the last 5 months since the primary season began and those who really don't pay a lot of attention to politics have started to become aware of Obama, I'm deeply impressed by the things that Matt Stoller has explicated here http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5637
1. Obama's oratorical skill
2. his forging of a new path to organizing people (using the new media, finessing Fox News,raising so much money in little amounts, binding his fans together through the site)
3. his dogged insistance on taking the highest road he can find even in the face of the Clintons' so-called kitchen sink strategy
4. his distancing himself from the party (so much so that for a long time now it's seemed to me that he is not part of the party at all)
5 .his committment to the 50-state Strategy and campaigning in all the states (reaching out to the mob and the little corner pizza place)
But as these tactics succeed, and the mob gets bigger, it gets harder to control. And those who don't get it resent it.
Control of the entire thing is clearly part of the Obama script. The further some person or group is from being willing to accept his being top dog, the further he wishes to distance himself from them. The blogosphere is too hard to bring under control, cannot be counted on to hew to his party line. Jeremiah Wright was uncontrollable and way too close to keep at arm's length and therefore was a liability.
So the real question is: what will he be with all this power? Just how strong will the Republicans have to be to keep that power from doing something seriously wrong for the country - even defining seriously wrong in progressive terms? Just how strong will we have to be to be part of the control? Will he be able to maintain his mediating skills once it's too easy to get enough to go along? Will he look outside his own box when he's infatuated with his own ideas?
Who will be there to keep him on track?
Well, I've looked at quite a few vids and some of the campaign stops, combed through the most recent press photos on NYT and AP-Reuters-AFP and the change is teriffic. Our guy looks like he's a President today.
Yesterday he looked like a candidate.
Thank you so much for your continuing support for the candidate of my choice. I believe Mr. Obama will bring to the Presidency some significant new skills. I look forward to your working with him and my neighbors in your district after he wins the election in November to bring about some of the changes of which he so frequently speaks.
Despite my being of the Clinton generation, it seems crystal clear to me that it is time to pass the governance to the new generation. I believe that Mr. Obama is uniquely qualified to bridge the chasm between my generation and those of my children and grandchildren, as well as between those of my race and those of all the other races which share my country with me.
Thank you again for your support.
This is the message i sent to my uncommitted superdelegates today.
I hope you will take my thoughts into consideration as you decide who to support for the Presidential nomination.
Here is a letter I wrote and posted on the "Save the Internet" blog and on the Huffington Post. Senator Kerry is seeking feedback on the importance of keeping the internet free of gateway fees which the large ISPs want to defray the cost of creating and maintaining the internet infrastructure.
As we shift from communication by paper to communication electronically a panoply of problems emerge, all of them devolving into questions of how to pay for the medium. Some problems center around getting the medium up to good mechanical quality and distribution. Others center around getting the medium accessible to all whether physically disabled, lacking in funds, or inadequately technologically or educationally prepared.
So the transition has a mechanical component, a cost-of-access component and an educational component.
Sadly, the traditional way to fund the solutions to those cost-of-access and mechanical components is burdened by a growing unwillingness of the better off public to pay for things that benefit the wider society. Clearly funding the infrastructure through the tax code would benefit the widest number of people.
Instead, the system has been invaded by gatekeepers, like Comcast and Verizon where I live, and polluted with pervasive advertising.
Indeed, the presence of these elements has a deeply negative impact on all our public communication whether it be internet, radio, television, or print. Turning to any vested interest for funding cannot but color the invested result.
So we encourage our government to come to grips in a populist way with the cost of this transition, not only the transition but also the result.
Using the basic principal of freedom of speech to keep access as wide and unfettered as imaginable seems to be a possible tack - especially aided by the fact that the internet is still interactive so the freedom has to run both ways i.e. from the gatekeepers and towards them. Just as we must permit them to splat ugly advertising all over the public airwaves, they must be required to permit us to use the airwaves to express our perspectives.
But providing for equal access when there is such an imbalance in the funding, and when economies of scale make it cost effective for a single company to manage the hardware and distribution networks, will require a carefully crafted set of legal guidelines.
For that reason the principal of Network Neutrality has come into existence.
We are all aware of the unfortunate impact money has on the welfare of the wider public. The New York Times, just today, released a massive study of its effect on the ethical spirits of a group of high ranking military officials - an effect with massive reverberations throughout our society and the world-wide economic system, not to mention on the Middle East. The prospect of becoming rich has led us to wager our entire culture on an energy source of limited quantity. Unless we can pry ourselves free of its clarion call, greed will motivate us to restrict basic resources like water and food to those who can pay. Already it has permitted us to pretend that we deserve to exploit the earth for our amusement without restraint or consideration of others for 35 years now.
Network Neutrality pales before these larger issues, but every step taken to consolidate power and wealth in the hands of the few accumulates and drives our society further away from the philosophy and practice of its originators.
So I write about this small step towards unrestricted equality of information access.
I hope my thoughts are of assistance to you as you prosecute this effort. Every effort to bring the influence of greed, power and disrespect under control can benefit our country.
Emily L. Ferguson
Land’s Edge Photography
P. O. Box 525
North Falmouth, MA 02556
508-563-6822
elf@landsedgephoto.com
www.landsedgephoto.com
An open letter to my superdelegates
On this sunny morning just before spring on Cape Cod I am writing to you to ask you to consider my thoughts when you decide who to support in August in Denver.
It has been nearly my entire life, since the middle of the Second World War, that my country has struggled with its posture in the world. As long as I can remember there has been a constant tug between self-aggrandizement on one side and trying to help the wider world on the other. Our history since 1945 reveals an endless struggle between sympathy and greed, fear and trust, defensiveness and self-confidence.
In the ‘40s and ‘50s, while we were rebuilding western Europe we were also persecuting those in our own land who thought and spoke openmindedly of different social arrangements there.
We just barely elected an inspiring and possibly well-intentioned young man as I entered college in 1960, only to resist his attempts to equalize opportunity for the poorest among us and to support his attempts to invade and dominate a tiny, tribal, impoverished land on the other side of the Pacific ocean.
Next, we elected, in reaction to the violence of our politics, a dishonest, reactionary man whose preoccupation with himself and his appearance led to his retirement under threat of impeachment, while we failed to recognize the long-term effects of his policies on the countries upon which we were becoming ever more dependent.
When his successor reaped the harvest of those policies and tried to change our dependencies we sneered, and elected an empty suit with a low-level movie-hack résumé. By accident the empty suit was still President when the peoples on the other side of the Wall finally managed to corner their governments and whip away the curtain, joyously chipping away bits of brick and concrete while we cheered.
From then, guided by the same political and economic policies which failed us in the 1970s, we elected a succession of con men who, pretending to help poor peoples of the wider world, opened the doors for our economic base to move away for ever. All the while we have failed ever more disgracefully to come to terms with our excessive lifestyle based on a limited resource, our excessive population living on a limited piece of land and our excessive use of power to keep others from getting in our way.
It has been time for a complete change in our perspective for many years now but we have refused to consider even the tiniest iota of it, opting instead to accumulate at others’ expense as much stuff as possible, mostly, of junk.
We have opted to lie to ourselves, to our allies, to our opponents, to our rich and to our poor, as a lifestyle choice.
So now I look back at this recital of our incompetence and see before me two possible Democratic candidates for yet another election to the highest position in my country. I see yet another opportunity for my country to try to deal with the messes we have made and I see two distinct ways of dealing being offered.
The first way is more of the same – a candidate who supported the scam that let our manufacturing go offshore without environmental safeguards, without forethought about the impact on our “blue collar” working classes, or about the assumption that we could go on being dependent on oil, without respect for the destruction of the soil and waters from which we feed our population, and without serious consideration of the consequences of our actions upon the rest of the human population.
Logically, it made a lot of sense. The rich would get richer and invent new work for the rest of us. But somehow it wasn’t reasonable to consider those who were disabled and could not learn, those who were too old or sick to change, those who did not want to get richer but just wanted to put in their time and come home to peace and quiet, those who did not want to uproot their families and move somewhere else to a new job, those who just wanted to get richer and didn’t give a damn about the rest of the world, and those who wanted to do something with their lives that society didn’t reward with riches.
Worst of all this first way seems to be a candidate who seems willing to say whatever will get her the nomination, whether it’s true or not.
The second way is less of the same – a candidate who thinks first and speaks afterwards, who straddles the races with a substantive acquaintance with both, who understands and is willing to work for a serious move away from our dependence on oil, whose campaign shows a grasp of organization and leadership, who is committed to bringing our children and grandchildren into our national politics, who is calm under stress, who listens to other perspectives and proposes doing that on an international level, whose attitude towards others he characterizes with the word “empathy”, and who seems to be deeply committed to his spouse and children.
And to me, best of all, a candidate who seems to be committed to being truthful with himself and us, and has been extraordinarily firm in his commitment to running a clean campaign.
So I am writing to you in hopes that you will have the patience to hear me through and consider seriously what I say when you decide which Democratic candidate to endorse in Denver, and which candidate to work for during the next four years.
Thank you.
...for even existing AND THEN...
...for being too black and for not being black enough and for being Barack Obama and for being Barry Obama and for beating Hillary in all those states and for not beating Hillary in those other states and for raising more money than either of the other people who are running for President and for raising too much money and for being too much of a Democrat and for not being enough of a Democrat and for being too much of a liberal and for not being enough of a liberal and for wanting to court Republicans and for not wanting to court Republicans and for talking about religion too much and for not talking about religion enough and for talking about religion in the wrong way and for being charming because its really just being slick and for being a great speaker because speeches are just words and for speaking too often and for not speaking often enough and for talking about race too much and for not talking about race enough and for talking about race in the wrong way and for talking about Reagan and for not talking about Reagan and for being just like JFK and for not being enough like JFK and for not being able to convince the superdelegates and for having the support of so many superdelegates and for being a fighter and for not fighting enough and for winning Texas and for losing Texas and for voting YES on some legislation and for voting NO on some legislation and for voting PRESENT on some legislation and for taking his name off the ballot in Michigan and for not keeping his name on the ballot in Michigan and for inspiring so many young voters and for inspiring too many young voters and for having so much African American support and for having too much African American support and for not having enough white support and for having the support of the wrong whites and for not having enough hispanic support and for having support for the wrong hispanics and for having a strong wife and for having black children and for not having white children and for not having hispanic children and for not having alien children and for wanting to talk with foreign leaders and for not wanting to talk to foreign leaders and for going to church, but the wrong church and for having a muslim father, unless he wasn't a muslim father, but maybe he should've been a muslim father and for not having enough experience and for having too much experience, but not the right kind of experience, and for once starting that joke that he didn't know the punchline to and for eating the last double glazed chocolate donut and for pressing the UP button when he really had to go DOWN and for forgetting to log off his Myspace account on a public computer and for smoking and for stopping smoking and for playing basketball well, but not bowling so well and for having the gall to actually have a shot at being the next President of the United States of America!
It seems a little early for reruns. Must be because of the writer's strike.
Ever since last fall, we've seen this same cycle repeat itself, with minor variations, over and over again. Some event happens that the Clintonistas fixate on as the THE BIG ONE: the Big Bolt From the Blue (or from Howard Wolfson's Blackberry—same thing as far as the MSM is concerned) that will finally end Obama's upstart attempt to usurp the office to which Hillary is rightfully entitled.
Her surrogates squeal in feigned outrage on the cable shows while Hillary sorrowfully relates Obama's error to her slowly dwindling crowds in her most unctuous tone. And, in the most recent variation, Hillary and McCain will say the exact same things for a few days. Bill and Harold Ickes will unleash a flood of phone calls and emails to the uncommitted superdelegates warning them of the Terrible Scary Commercials the Republicans will run against Obama in the fall as a result of this Big Awful Thing that happened. (“See? See? Here's some actual Republican scumbag consultants who say they'll destroy him with this one, see? You believe them, right? They have supernatural powers, you know. Only a Clinton can resist them. Oooohhh, scary, scary, be very afraid!”)The MSM leaps like trained seals to tossed fish at Hillary's emails, breathlessly reporting that Obama's campaign faces THE crisis of his campaign, a potential game changer that could deliver the nomination to Hillary, regardless of that pesky math stuff that silly who don't understand good TV keep trying to talk about. Politico hyperventilates, Fox foams and raves, At ABC, Tapper sneers and Sunlen Miller circles in the sky, waiting for a meal. Halpirin transcribes and engages in vapid pontification and CNN alternates between substance, sensationalism and superficiality in a dizzying cycle. Across the Intertubes, Hillary's trolls and sockpuppets rub their hands and cackle with glee. “At last! This time we finally have him! He is dooooomed, doooomed, I say! Buahahahahahaha!” In the Hillarite alternate e-universe of Taylormarsh.com, MyDD.com and Hillis44.org, the victory celebration begins with the obligatory bile spitting. In the real blogs, dispirited supporters of Hillry who haven't been seen in days or weeks reappear to express their confident predictions that, at last, all these deluded Obama voters will finally WAKE UP! (TM) and see what a [pick one or more of the following: (fraud) (sexist) (elitist) (empty suit) (racist) (inexperienced naïve incompetent) (snake charmer) (snake oils salesman) (muslim sleeper agent) (bad evil person misogynist of the male gender who is trying to stop America from electing the Only Woman in America Who Will Ever Have a Chance to Become President)] Obama is. And, most depressingly of all, some of Obama's supporters will do what Democrats are always prone to do when faced with the least adversity in a campaign: they'll run around in little circles, hands in the air, crying out their anguished frightened advice to his campaign: “Ohno ohno ohno! In our heart of hearts we secretly agree with Hillary and the Republicans that the voters are dumber than we enlightened activist Democrats are. We're afraid they won't understand! He needs to make a major speech! He must recant! No, he must must stand firm! Is there somebody we can throw under a bus? Commercials! He must run many, many commercials! Maybe he should abandon state X and concentrate on state Y where they won't care about The Big Terrible Thing! And the Republicans, oh Dear God, here come the Republicans with their supernatural powers!” And then, as always, Obama will calmly do that Akido thing he does with all these nontroversies. He'll stand his ground, talk about the Thing Which Must Never be Said that he did say, doing so again and again, as many times as it takes to make the MSM realize that he was actually making a point rather than gaffing. And he'll use the point to pivot back onto McHillary, exposing their attacks as yet another example of the petty game playing and point scoring Washington nonsense that has got to change. The MSM will then feel foolish and some will turn on McHillary for having made them feel foolish. The scandal will die everywhere but on Fox News and the wingnutosphere, where they'll keep ranting and raving about it for weeks on end until the next thing comes along, but no one who'd ever vote for a Democrat will be listening. Then Hillary and her supporters will sullenly try to keep the thing going long past the point where it does harm to anyone but themselves, in complete denial that, once again, their plan to take back that which is rightfully Hers have failed. Finally, Bill will throw one of his patented tantrums in public which will announce the formal end of the nontroversy cycle. And all the wavering Obama supporters will find themselves, once again, saying “damn, yeah, that's the reason I'm for him, hey never doubted you for a moment” and calm back down. So, to those among the Obama contingent in the comments here who are talkin' all jittery, have a little faith in Obama's repeatedly demonstrated ability to turn these things back around on the other side and come out stronger and stop all the moaning. Sheesh, we've still got a ways to go on this trip and getting all panicky every time we hit some turbulence is not productive. As to the Clintonistas and Republitrolls, hey, keep doing what you're doing. I love watching you get yourselves worked up into the these celebratory frenzies, only to have your hopes (heh!) cruelly dashed once again. It fills me with that same sense of impending comic pathos I feel as Wyle E. Coyote, snickering nastily, opens up yet another shipment of fine Acme Company products and begins implementing his next brilliant plan.
I've started sending this out to some people on my personal email list. You might want to consider something like it for your friends. It would be nice to have a connection with other people in Falmouth who are especially interested in Senator Obama's campaign.
Hi,
I'm working on trying to get people interested in the Obama candidacy connected through this group on My.BarackObama.com: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/FalmouthMassForObama If you are interested in joining this email group and in getting information about the campaign and local events, please consider signing up at the link above. You will have to register at the site and then you will be receiving solicitations for the campaign which you can discard or unsubscribe from. Right now, since I don't have a TV I'm trying to assemble a debate watching party on April 16th and hoping to have a group of people that I can contact through this list. If you're absolutely not interested, period, or even not yet ready to think about politics right now, feel free to let me know at elf@landsedgephoto.com. Thanks.
